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In my Birthday Haul 2023* thread, I shared some pics of two birth year Dunhills and a pipe from the collection of the late pipe maker, Thomas Cristiano, that was made from a gnarled briar root that retained most of its original organic form; the Dunhills are both sixty years old this year and the root pipe was supposedly in Cristiano’s personal collection for about sixty years. While these pipes could be considered special in their own right, as @LotusEater pointed out, I mentioned that I would post about a very special birthday pipe in the weeks to come—that pipe has finally arrived and is in hand, but first some background is needed to fully appreciate why it’s so special.
Back in 2017, Savinelli received a shipment of stellar briar from Calabria. Shane Ireland of smokingpipes.com reported on his visit to the Savinelli factory. While he was there, one of the senior artisans, Massimo, was working on an Autograph Freehand Fan shaped pipe that showed incredible promise (there was an “Around the Burl” video at smokingpipes.com that showed this pipe being worked on, that used to be hosted on YouTube—it has since been taken down and now resides on Vimeo†). With this shape, there’s little wiggle room to work around a flaw if one reveals itself while carving. Massimo showed the nearly completed pipe to the factory manager, Luisa Bozzetti, and Shane Ireland. They all agreed that it would make an exquisite sandblast provided no flaws reared their ugly heads during the final stages of completion. Massimo went ahead with the blast. As good fortune would have it, it went without a hitch; there were no blemishes, and the pipe was given the exalted grade of “Extraordinaire” (in Italian, “Eccezionale,” which translates more accurately to “Exceptional.”) Savinelli Autograph pipes are strictly graded according to shape, grain, and quality using these grades (also referred to as groups by Savinelli) in ascending order: 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, with the next level up being 0, 00, and 000 (the penultimate). The Extraordinaire grade of Autograph is almost as rare as hen’s teeth, and is the highest of the high, considered an even higher grade than the infrequently seen 000 (this grade should not be confused with the “EX” designation, which also stands for Extraordinaire, but is a reference to a pipe’s physical size, like “KS” or “King Size”); the Extraordinaire/Eccezionale grade has nothing to do with size, only the quality of the pipe. I’ve recently read that Savinelli produces approximately 100,000 pipes annually (this number was around 80,000 in 2015, so pipe sales must’ve improved in the last eight years; compare that to their production number of 400,000 circa 1973, and it’s downright sad). In years past, it has been written that on average, perhaps, only two or three Extraordinaire pipes are produced in a five-year period—this should give you a pretty good idea of what a miniscule percentage an Extraordinaire represents in relation to the company’s total output; based on these numbers, approximately one out of every quarter million Savinelli pipes is an Extraordinaire. I‘ve noticed an increase in Extraordinaires offered in the last couple of years, so the 1:250,000 ratio may no longer hold true—even so, they still represent a drop in the bucket. This Fan had amazing ring grain and straight grain. Rather than mask this grain structure with stain, the decision was made to leave the pipe in a true virgin finish—no stain, no wax, no nothing. It was the first virgin, sandblasted, Extraordinaire Fan ever produced by the company. It was sold on smokingpipes.com
Below are pics of this pipe and its presentation box:
So, last year, in 2022, I saw four Autograph Extraordinaire pipes offered for sale on Savinelli’s own website, among them, a virgin, sandblasted, Fan. Knowing how infrequently an Extraordinaire turns up, and that only one other virgin, sandblasted, Fan had been released (to the best of my knowledge), I started eyeballing this pipe big time. I liked the pipe’s squared off chili pepper-like stem and presentation box with its scalloped corner cutouts and blue rounded pillars much better than the pipe stem and box of the 2017 pipe. I began seriously thinking about treating myself to this pipe for my upcoming 60th birthday in February of 2023. Living through five complete twelve-year Chinese Zodiac Rabbit cycles seemed like a worthy thing to commemorate. Why not mark the event with a special pipe? I had designed a reissue of a novel by one of my closest friends (whom I met in art school forty years ago this coming Fall) and thought it would be a nice sentiment to take the book design fee and forever associate my design for my friend’s book with this birthday pipe. The gig was a last minute save because the book had to go to press soon; the previous designer hadn’t done a satisfactory job typesetting the interior of the book. My friend refused to have his novel presented so poorly and wanted me to salvage the project and keep production on schedule. After a brief video meeting and a virtual handshake with the publisher, I worked under a very tight deadline on the book design and delivered the interior and cover in time so that the novel would come out as scheduled. There was a wrinkle in my plan to use the proceeds from the book for the pipe—payments got switched to a portal system before my invoice got processed and I had never been entered into that new system by anyone at the publishing house. After the book came out, there were many e-mails back and forth trying to get someone to enter me into the system; there were major delays and the funds from the book (for the pipe) were stuck in limbo. All I could do was look at the pipe on Savinelli’s website (I wasn’t ready to spring for the pipe without that payment). Black Friday rolled around, and I failed to realize that Black Friday sales were international. Everything on Savinelli’s website was heavily discounted that day, and someone smartly snagged the Extraordinaire Fan earlier that morning before I thought to check the website; had I taken into account the time difference in Italy, I might’ve checked sooner, in the middle of the night. With the big discount, I would’ve considered possibly diverting some earmarked shekels for the pipe. I was crestfallen. Part of me almost felt like I jinxed getting this pipe after I had downloaded and saved thirty photos of it from the 360° view a few days earlier, something akin to counting my chickens before they hatched.
More to follow.
Back in 2017, Savinelli received a shipment of stellar briar from Calabria. Shane Ireland of smokingpipes.com reported on his visit to the Savinelli factory. While he was there, one of the senior artisans, Massimo, was working on an Autograph Freehand Fan shaped pipe that showed incredible promise (there was an “Around the Burl” video at smokingpipes.com that showed this pipe being worked on, that used to be hosted on YouTube—it has since been taken down and now resides on Vimeo†). With this shape, there’s little wiggle room to work around a flaw if one reveals itself while carving. Massimo showed the nearly completed pipe to the factory manager, Luisa Bozzetti, and Shane Ireland. They all agreed that it would make an exquisite sandblast provided no flaws reared their ugly heads during the final stages of completion. Massimo went ahead with the blast. As good fortune would have it, it went without a hitch; there were no blemishes, and the pipe was given the exalted grade of “Extraordinaire” (in Italian, “Eccezionale,” which translates more accurately to “Exceptional.”) Savinelli Autograph pipes are strictly graded according to shape, grain, and quality using these grades (also referred to as groups by Savinelli) in ascending order: 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, with the next level up being 0, 00, and 000 (the penultimate). The Extraordinaire grade of Autograph is almost as rare as hen’s teeth, and is the highest of the high, considered an even higher grade than the infrequently seen 000 (this grade should not be confused with the “EX” designation, which also stands for Extraordinaire, but is a reference to a pipe’s physical size, like “KS” or “King Size”); the Extraordinaire/Eccezionale grade has nothing to do with size, only the quality of the pipe. I’ve recently read that Savinelli produces approximately 100,000 pipes annually (this number was around 80,000 in 2015, so pipe sales must’ve improved in the last eight years; compare that to their production number of 400,000 circa 1973, and it’s downright sad). In years past, it has been written that on average, perhaps, only two or three Extraordinaire pipes are produced in a five-year period—this should give you a pretty good idea of what a miniscule percentage an Extraordinaire represents in relation to the company’s total output; based on these numbers, approximately one out of every quarter million Savinelli pipes is an Extraordinaire. I‘ve noticed an increase in Extraordinaires offered in the last couple of years, so the 1:250,000 ratio may no longer hold true—even so, they still represent a drop in the bucket. This Fan had amazing ring grain and straight grain. Rather than mask this grain structure with stain, the decision was made to leave the pipe in a true virgin finish—no stain, no wax, no nothing. It was the first virgin, sandblasted, Extraordinaire Fan ever produced by the company. It was sold on smokingpipes.com
Below are pics of this pipe and its presentation box:
So, last year, in 2022, I saw four Autograph Extraordinaire pipes offered for sale on Savinelli’s own website, among them, a virgin, sandblasted, Fan. Knowing how infrequently an Extraordinaire turns up, and that only one other virgin, sandblasted, Fan had been released (to the best of my knowledge), I started eyeballing this pipe big time. I liked the pipe’s squared off chili pepper-like stem and presentation box with its scalloped corner cutouts and blue rounded pillars much better than the pipe stem and box of the 2017 pipe. I began seriously thinking about treating myself to this pipe for my upcoming 60th birthday in February of 2023. Living through five complete twelve-year Chinese Zodiac Rabbit cycles seemed like a worthy thing to commemorate. Why not mark the event with a special pipe? I had designed a reissue of a novel by one of my closest friends (whom I met in art school forty years ago this coming Fall) and thought it would be a nice sentiment to take the book design fee and forever associate my design for my friend’s book with this birthday pipe. The gig was a last minute save because the book had to go to press soon; the previous designer hadn’t done a satisfactory job typesetting the interior of the book. My friend refused to have his novel presented so poorly and wanted me to salvage the project and keep production on schedule. After a brief video meeting and a virtual handshake with the publisher, I worked under a very tight deadline on the book design and delivered the interior and cover in time so that the novel would come out as scheduled. There was a wrinkle in my plan to use the proceeds from the book for the pipe—payments got switched to a portal system before my invoice got processed and I had never been entered into that new system by anyone at the publishing house. After the book came out, there were many e-mails back and forth trying to get someone to enter me into the system; there were major delays and the funds from the book (for the pipe) were stuck in limbo. All I could do was look at the pipe on Savinelli’s website (I wasn’t ready to spring for the pipe without that payment). Black Friday rolled around, and I failed to realize that Black Friday sales were international. Everything on Savinelli’s website was heavily discounted that day, and someone smartly snagged the Extraordinaire Fan earlier that morning before I thought to check the website; had I taken into account the time difference in Italy, I might’ve checked sooner, in the middle of the night. With the big discount, I would’ve considered possibly diverting some earmarked shekels for the pipe. I was crestfallen. Part of me almost felt like I jinxed getting this pipe after I had downloaded and saved thirty photos of it from the 360° view a few days earlier, something akin to counting my chickens before they hatched.
More to follow.
